Children in all primary and secondary schools in England returned to the classroom on Monday 8 March, after over two months of remote learning at home. St John's was no exception and the children were welcomed back with much excitement and anticipation across all ages. The Form 1 teachers created an opportunity in the first week for the whole year group bubble to be out in the fresh air and to collaborate together with energetic team games as a way of bonding the children once again and reinforcing friendships across the three classes.
The children made use of the expansive St John's playing fields and were deliberately put in mixed teams across the year group bubble. The teachers had hidden different symbols around the field and the children had to communicate as an effective team to try and locate the correct symbol, memorise the code on the back, and race back to their team. Form 1 teacher, Miss Kim Dempster, explained, 'It was trickier than it first appeared as any member of the team could be asked the code at random and so they had to ensure that their teammates also knew the code!'
After a few attempts, the children realised that they could be more tactical in their approach and only send one member out to run and get the code, therefore, conserving energy and time. One Form 1 said, 'It took us a while to work out that we had to really listen and trust each other and not be thinking about what the other teams were doing but to concentrate on working together and supporting each other!' Another Form 1 remarked, 'It was fun because we got to run around on a sunny day and we worked with children from different classes and not just our own'.
